Good grief, went out to get a few last minute gifts and let me tell you – the shoppers are out in force. Store racks and shelves are in a mess from people rummaging thru the merchandise. I was looking for a coat for my sister, so I joined all the guys wandering around the ladies departments trying to figure out how the sizes for women worked. If I could remember back to my retail days where I had managed some womens departments I would be fine, BUT… I’ve slept since then. I pulled the “phone a friend” thing and got the technical support I was needing and walked out with a gift in hand. Mission accomplished.

I also have a good experience to report from TomTom, the GPS people. My parents are here from overseas and are having to do a lot of traveling around. I loaned them my TomTom to use on their journeys. Thing is, the maps on there are 2 years old. I went to the TomTom site to buy updated maps and found what I needed. The map update was $79. I downloaded it then put it on my device. The next day I was on their website and saw they had put the map update on sale for $59. Craptacular. I made one call in to their tech support line and they hooked me up with a $20 credit back to my card. Great service from them.

Anyway, Megan and I have been getting our eat on this week. Tuesday night we had dinner at Bonefish Grill with our friends Brandon and Jaime. Thursday night was dinner with Beth and Jimmie at The Jazz Factory. Food all around was excellent. Friday night we ate at Red Robin before catching a movie at Monaco Pictures over at Bridgestreet. Whew! Party tonight with Megan’s church group. The fun just keeps on rolling!

I had the opportunity to zip up to the Smokey Mountains this past weekend to spend time relaxing with friends. I grew up in Knoxville – south Knoxville to be exact. From my house there, it was only about a 45 minute run till you were in Pigeon Forge and a few more minutes to Gatlinburg. From there you were another few minutes to the Sugarland Visitors Center – the first spot most folks go when arriving at the park. Back in the day, my friends and I would take my Trans-Am and go all over the place. Nothing like having the t-tops out and driving around those curvy mountain roads to make for a fun time.

I did make it over to Cades Cove to drive around the loop. Nothing has changed from what I could tell. My last time in the park was at least 20 years ago. I did get to see some wildlife this go around. First was a small black bear. Of course all I had on my camera was my wide-angle lens so that did me no good. All you see in the image is a dark spot in the grass. I did have better luck with some deer though…

With many of my friends changing over to iPhones, getting together for lunch, dinner or whatever else invariably turns into an iPhone orgy with each of us flaunting new apps, new tips on using them, taking caller id photos of each other, you name it. But it’s FUN. Speaking of fun, several folks from church are Twittering now so our connected little community is starting to grow. Pretty soon I’m sure we’ll be Twittering about going out to dinner somewhere or to a movie and have some other folks nearby come and join that are looking for something to do. How cool is that?

Now then, the practical application of geekiness. I’ve been working on a problem with my Apple XServe at the office. One of the data drives failed 2 weeks ago and it’s been a long arduous process getting things going again. Truth be told, I’ve been meaning to do some upgrades to the system and how it was configured – now with a service window at hand, it was time to get things back to tip top shape. First, I wanted to change how my drives were set up. In my old configuration, I had 3 – 250gb drives. I drive was my boot drive that I put the operating system and server applications on. The other two I striped together as a RAID 0 volume that was 500gb in size. That wasn’t such a good idea but you live and learn. A problem with either of the two would cause a loss of data on both. Now, I *DO* back the data drives up to tape every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening so I’ve got that part covered. The caveat is restoring data – it takes awhile to move 400gb+ from tape to hard drives. At first, I thought I wanted to go with having a boot drive and then the two remaining drives as a RAID 1 set. This way, data is mirrored on the two drive and losing one or the other wouldn’t impact things. Another identical complete set of files would be avaialble on the non-failing drive. Problem here is now my data drive will only be 250gb instead of 500gb. I could get bigger drives but there’s an issue with the max drive size supported by the firmware on the server that I didn’t want to fool with.

Ultimately, I am going with a RAID 5 setup using all 3 drives. This way, I can lose any 1 of the 3 drives and all the data will be there but performance will be degraded. I simply replace the failed drive and the server automatically starts rebuilding the data. Also, I have more room! I set up a 20gb logical drive to put the OS and server applications on and then another logical drive around 450gb in size for data. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The original hard drives were Hitachi DeskStars (or DeathStars). Since those guys have been spinning 24/7 since 2004, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go ahead and replace them with drives being so cheap nowdays. Got some Seagate Barracuda ES drives. Long story made VERY short. The server and those drives didn’t play well together. In the interim, I discovered that the servers built-in CD-ROM drive wouldn’t read CD’s… I needed that so I could boot from CD to set up my RAID card and install server software from. GAH!!! I called around to some Apple repair shops for a replacement CD-ROM drive and got prices from $120 to $150 and up for the part. GAH!!! There’s no 24X CD-ROM worth THAT in this day and age. I slid the server out of the rack and looked at the drive. I got the part number and manufacturer off it then did some Googling. I bought TWO of the CD-ROM drives I needed BRAND NEW for… $3.99 each. They arrived today. I put one in and voila! It workee workee.

Back to my Seagates now. The server would only intermittently recognize them. NOT GOOD. I went back over to my buddy’s shop (he ordered the Seagates for me) and told him my latest predicament. He let me have three Maxtor drives to try. I swapped out the drives. BINGO! They are working like a champ.

Finally, I was able to configure the RAID controller and get the drives all set up. I’ve got OSX loaded as well as all the zillions of updates from Apple installed. I’ve got the latest version of Retrospect installed too – that’s my backup program.

Things were going too smoothly now. So… as if on queue, my next issue is that the catalog files for my backups (they have a list of what’s on the backup tapes) aren’t being recognized as catalog files by Retrospect now. I copied the catalog files from the old server to my Mac Book and also to my Dell laptop. For some reason, the server thinks the catalogs are UNIX executable files. Grrrr…. I’ve got to figure out how to heal what looks to be some sort of file association horkage.

I haven’t had to have my I.T. hat on so tightly since my Intergraph days.

After being a Crackberry user and T-Mobile subscriber since the Powertel days, I’ve made the leap to an iPhone 3G and AT&T. Honestly, I’ve been interested in the iPhone since it’s introduction but I was still in the middle of my contract with T-Mobile and making the change just wasn’t worth the money it would take to cancel early and make the switch to a new phone and another carrier. There was a glimmer of hope of staying with T-Mobile when they introduced the Google phone or “G1″ as they are calling it, about a week or so ago. The big problem though was that there was probably not going to be 3G coverage in my area on their network for awhile still.

Kevin calls me last week and lets me know he and Stacey picked up iPhones. I decided to at least call T-Mobile to find out how long I had on my contract (which renewed when I got my Blackberry 8700g). It turns out that as of just a couple of months ago, my contract was up and I was eligible to upgrade my phone. When the T-Mobile rep asked me if I wanted to upgrade, I said “Nope! Goodbye!”.  My next stop was Apple’s site where I was able to start the process on getting an iPhone – fill out my info, number transfer, select my plan then schedule an appointment to pick up my phone at the Apple store. Everything was ready for me once I got to the store. All I had to do was pick a model and color and a case to put it in. I went with a white 16GB model. The 8GB versions were all black but with the 16GB you could get black OR white. A lot of my friends had black ones already so I thought white would be a nice change.  A few minutes later, I walked out with my old number transferred to my new phone with everything all set to go. I remember in the past activating a phone let alone transferring a number from another carrier took some time. This was all done in a matter of minutes and with no fuss. What a pleasant surprise.

Church was funny today when I discovered just how many had “drank the kool-aid” as well. At lunch, Kevin, Stacey and I were nerding out with our phones. So much so that Jason got the thirst also and had his iPhone within the hour!

Friday last week ended a busy few days for me. The big news is that my parents are in town for a visit. Picked them up from the airport Thursday without incident, but had to put up with the minor inconvenience of VP Dick Cheney’s motorcade returning to Air Force Two – they temporarily shut down a few roads which caused some delay but nothing unreasonable. Anyway, I spent Friday evening with friends relaxing at Maria Bonita. Megan was under the weather and stayed in that evening to get some much needed rest.

Saturday was a big day of football. Alabama won, the Vols got smushed (I am NOT at all happy with that NOR am I impressed with our new QB) and Auburn fell to LSU. A mixed bag for sure. I spent the evening photographing a surprise birthday party for my friend David’s 30th. His wife did a great job of planning things out and keeping it all under wraps. I was pleased with my photos although the more I look at the images coming from my 5D, I really only turn to my old 20D for backup purposes as the quality difference is monumental. Speaking of 5D, Canon announced the newest iteration of the 5D, the 5D Mark II. Full-frame and 21 megapixels has me (and plenty others) drooling. It’s got a spot on my wish list for sure.

Sunday morning came early. I was on drum duty so that meant I needed to get there by 6:30 am. Due to some logistical challenges, the mood was not its normal cheery albeit groggy self. It was crotchety. Not one to let other people’s moods influence mine too much, I went about my normal setup routine which went off without a hitch. My audio setup was even smooth which was a pleasant surprise. Almost as quickly as it began, church was over and it was time to pack up and leave. Our lunch crowd avoided the regular restaurant choices and instead opted for Pizza Hut. As a result, we had food in front of us after only a few minutes then were headed home in no time. MUCH better than burning 2+ hours at most other places.

Ended the evening having a nice cookout with the family.

I have a simple question that I’ve been meaning to ask. When you drive in at Sonic and place an order from your car (I say that because some Sonic’s have a drive-thru), do you tip the person that brings you your food?

If you don’t have a Sonic where you’re from, it’s a fast food place where you park and order from your car. The food is brought to your car.

As I write this, Hurricane Gustav is making it’s way through the south – please remember our friends in that area. A buddy of mine, Greg G., lives down in NOLA with his wife and kids. They were affected by Katrina, but only had some light damage to their home and 2nd vehicle. Luckily for them, floodwaters never reached their home. Greg had hoped they would be out of there before another major storm hit but that hasn’t materialized yet. I spoke to him Saturday though and they were packing and planning to head out to safety Sunday morning. They have to cross that causeway across Lake Ponchatrain that you see on the news so much. One thing they DID get done post-Katrina was to install storm shutters on their windows that greatly cut down on the time it takes to secure their house against bad weather. All that really remained was to board up the doors to seal off the house. After watching the news today, it looks as though NOLA will be spared from another disaster (as of right now). I am concerned about the strength of the new levees though. Seeing water lapping over the tops of them looks pretty ominous.

Meanwhile, we’ve been dealing with OPPRESSIVE humidity here lately. It’s not too bad when you’re relaxing in the shade with a cool drink in your hands. It’s another thing when you’re working. Megan tagged along with me on a wedding job last Saturday evening. While the wedding was indoors, the bulk of the reception was outside. It was sweltering! It was only later that I was reminded that there was a re-enactment of a civil war battle fought here in the late 1800’s going on earlier in the day. I’ve shot that before and those guys are in FULL WOOL SUITS! I can only imagine how uncomfortable that must have been.

The last weekend me, Megan and Livvie headed over to Jennifer and Rodney’s place to have lunch and just hang out. It was a slightly gray day but it kept the heat to a bearable level. They live outside town and have a great place. Jennifer has set up her back yard with plenty of photo sites (she’s been a photographer for years and has a studio not too far from my office) to use with clients and Rodney has a garage (with an in-ground lift baby) to further his (serious) hobby of working with VW’s. Anyway, living in the country isn’t complete without livestock. Suprisingly, Livvie was interested in trying horseback riding. I say suprisingly because she usually isn’t one to try anything new or remotely daring. Megan was suprised as well but we encouraged Livvie and hoped she wouldn’t chicken out. She didn’t.

Brayden! Kyle and Jawana welcomed him into the world at 6:49 this morning. Momma is fine, albeit a bit hazy from the meds and daddy is a little hazy from being, well, a new dad. Heh! Megan and I stopped in to see them after work today and I just happened to have a camera handy.

A big congratulations to you guys!

That’s the title of a Dave Matthew’s Band song and album by the same name. It could also be used to describe my DVD player – dangit. Jason was over here the other day so I was going to show him something I had on DVD only to find it wasn’t working. When you put a disc in, the player would try to read it then after a minute, display a cryptic error message. I Googled the error message and found the problem – the spindle motor was dead. There was a slim chance that it had frozen in place and by removing the player’s cover, manually turning the disc could free up the mechanism and you could be back in business. I did all that to no avail. It’s really dead. I hate it when my technology malfunctions.

While things are going down the tubes, I noticed my car being a bit sluggish when starting Tuesday. Progressively, it got worse throughout the day but I was always able to start. This morning though, it was REALLY sluggish so I headed straight to Sears for a battery and called the office to let them know I would be in later. Turns out going to Sears was a great idea. Once I got there and turned the car off, it wouldn’t crank. It was indeed the battery and nothing more serious (or expensive) like a starter or alternator problem. Got a new battery and now I’m back in biznass.

Switching gears, I got a new wide-angle lens. I actually got it in an equal trade for another wide-angle lens I had. Me and this guy on one of the photography forums I frequent luck out as he was looking for the lens I had and I was looking for the one he had. They are both equal in value (+/- $10) at about $700. So after checking him out (he did the same on me) and looking legit, we each shipped our lenses off to each other. Everything went smoothly and we were both happy with the trade. Just goes to show there are indeed still some honest folks out there that you can trust.

Looks like my 3-week break from drumming at church is over as I’m back on deck for this Sunday. In the very near future (2 or 3 weeks), things will be stepping up as we’ll be going to TWO services on Sunday mornings. I have to say that’s pretty exciting. The move to two services was prompted by a good problem to have… more and more people coming to make room for. I’m really looking forward to it.

For those of you that don’t know, the church I attend meets in a movie theater. In a nutshell, we’re there because we outgrew the building we were in prior to the move and there are no other locations suitable for us at this time. Here’s the thing… we just rent the theater. We have to bring in and set-up/take down all lights, sound, staging, music gear, projectors, kids areas, coffee bar, etc. every Sunday. There’s a lot involved. From what I’ve heard, we may have a big influx of volunteers that will make the logistics a little less demanding on individuals. That’s a good thing…

What a fantastic weekend! For those of you that don’t know, my birthday is coming up this Tuesday – and it’s a big ‘un. Probably bigger than you would expect as THANKFULLY, most folks think I am considerably younger than I actually am based on looks. Honestly, I do live like I am much younger than I am. I guess that’s a side effect of being single and not having the types of responsibilities that other “adults” my age have with growing families and such. All in all, that’s a good thing.

Megan and Tiffany got together to plan a party for me that came together last night. I and close to 60 of my friends and family got together for a big meal and a great time of just hanging out on my back patio. In addition to the girls, several others were involved that made the evening enjoyable for everyone (you know who you are). As I went from table to table talking to friends both old and new, I can’t  help but be thankful for all I have been blessed with. Thanks to all who came out!